<?xml version="1.0"?>
<sect1 id="repo-dirs-trunk-identity" xreflabel="trunk/Identity" label="4.2">
<title><filename class="directory">trunk/Identity</filename></title>
<para>The <filename class="directory">trunk/Identity</filename>
directory implements The CentOS Project <emphasis>corporate
identity</emphasis> based on the The CentOS Project
<emphasis>mission</emphasis> and <emphasis>release
schema</emphasis>.</para>
<sect2 id="corporate-mission" xreflabel="The corporate mission" label="4.2.1">
<title>The corporate mission</title>
<para>The CentOS Project exists to provide The CentOS
Distribution. Additionally, The CentOS Project provides The
CentOS Web and The CentOS Showroom to support and promote the
existence of The CentOS Distribution, respectively.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="corporate-identity" xreflabel="The corporate identity" label="4.2.2">
<title>The corporate identity</title>
<para>The CentOS Project corporate identity is the ``persona''
of the organization known as The CentOS Project. The CentOS
Project corporate identity plays a significant role in the way
The CentOS Project, as organization, presents itself to both
internal and external stakeholders. In general terms, The
CentOS Project corporate identity expresses the values and
ambitions of The CentOS Project organization, its business,
and its characteristics.</para>
<para>The CentOS Project corporate identity provides
visibility, recognizability, reputation, structure and
identification to The CentOS Project organization by means of
<emphasis>corporate design</emphasis>, <emphasis>corporate
communication</emphasis>, and <emphasis>corporate
behaviour</emphasis>.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="corporate-design" xreflabel="The corporate design" label="4.2.3">
<title>The corporate design</title>
<para>The corporate design is focused on the effective
communication of corporate messages. Corporate messages are
all the information emitted from the corporation to a target
audience. In order for such communication to happen, it is
required to put the messages on a medium available for the
target audience to react upon. These media are know as
<emphasis>corporate manifestations</emphasis>, because the
corporation manifests its existence through them. The specific
way used by the corporation to set their messages on different
media is what the corporate design is about.</para>
<para>The amount of manifestations a corporation uses to
communicate its existence may very from one corporation to
another. In the very specific case of The CentOS Project, the
following corporate manifestations come to mind:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The CentOS Distribution — The CentOS
Distribution corporate manifestaion is made from SRPM
packages. There are packages that make a remarkable
use of images (e.g., Anaconda, Grub, Syslinux, Gdm,
Kdm, Gsplash, Ksplash, Rhgb, Firstboot, etc.),
packages that make a moderated use of images and
packages that don't use images at all. Also, there
are some packages that make use of text-based
information that need to be changed, too (e.g.,
release notes, eula, the welcome page of the web
browser, etc.), in order for The CentOS Project to
comply with upstream's redistribution guidelines. The
CentOS Distribution corporate manifestation focuses
its attention on SRPM packages that do use images in a
remarkable way, specifically those packages that
involve upstream branding, and those files with
text-based information that need to be changed. This
way, through image and text-based files, is
implemented the corporate design of The CentOS
Distribution corporate manifestations (i.e., all the
releases of the operating system).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The CentOS Web — This corporate
manifestation exists to support The CentOS
Distribution corporate manifestation. The CentOS Web
corporate manifestation covers web applications used
by The CentOS Project to manifest its existence on the
Internet. These web applications are free software
and come from different providers which distribute
their work with predefined visual styles. Frequently,
these predefined visual styles have no visual relation
among themselves and introduce some visual
contraditions when they all are put together. These
visual contraditions need to be removed in order to
comply with The CentOS Project corporate structure
guidelines.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The CentOS Showroom — This corporate
manifestation exists to promote The CentOS
Distribution. The CentOS Showroom corporate
manifestation covers industrial production of objects
branded by The CentOS Project (e.g., clothes,
stationery and installation media). These branded
objects are for distribution on social events and/or
shops. They provide a way of promotion and a route
for commercialization that may help to aliviate The
CentOS Project expenses (e.g., hosting, servers,
full-time-developers, etc.), in a similar way as
donations may do.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>The corporate manifestations above seem to cover all the
media required by The CentOS Project, as organization, to show
its existence. However, other corporate manifestations could
be added in the future, if needed, to cover different areas
like building, offices, transportation and whaterver medium
The CentOS Project thouches to show its existence.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="corporate-communication" xreflabel="The corporate
communication" label="4.2.4">
<title>The corporate communication</title>
<para> The CentOS Project corporate communication is based on
<emphasis>community communication</emphasis> and takes place
through the following avenues:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>The CentOS Chat (#centos, #centos-social},
#centos-devel on irc.freenode.net)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The CentOS Mailing Lists (<ulink url="http://lists.centos.org/" />).</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The CentOS Forums (<ulink url="http://forums.centos.org/" />).</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The CentOS Wiki (<ulink url="http://wiki.centos.org/" />).</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Social events, interviews, conferences, etc.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="corporate-behaviour" xreflabel="The corporate behaviour"
label="4.2.5">
<title>The corporate behaviour</title>
<para>The CentOS Project corporate behaviour is based on
<emphasis>community behaviour</emphasis> which take place in
<xref linkend="corporate-communication" />.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="corporate-structure" xreflabel="The corporate structure"
label="4.2.6">
<title>The corporate structure</title>
<para> The CentOS Project corporate structure is based on
a <emphasis>monolithic corporate visual identity
structure</emphasis>. In this configuration, one unique
name and one unique visual style is used in all corporate
manifestations of The CentOS Project.</para>
<para>In a monolithic corporate visual identity structure,
internal and external stakeholders feel a strong sensation
of uniformity, orientation, and identification with the
organization. No matter if you are visiting web sites,
using the distribution, or acting on social events, the
one unique name and one unique visual style connects them
all to say: <emphasis>Hey! we are all part of The CentOS
Project</emphasis>.</para>
<para>Other corporate structures for The CentOS Project
have been considered as well. Such is the case of
producing one different visual style for each major
release of The CentOS Distribution. This structure isn't
inconvenient at all, but some visual contradictions could
be introduced if it isn't applied correctly and we need to
be aware of it. To apply it correctly, we need to know
what The CentOS Project is made of.</para>
<para>The CentOS Project, as organization, is mainly made
of (but not limited to) three corporate manifestions: The
CentOS Distribution, The CentOS Web and The CentOS
Showroom. Inside The CentOS Distribution corporate
manifestations, The CentOS Project maintains near to four
different major releases of The CentOS Distribution (e.g.,
the operating system), parallely in time. However, inside
The CentOS Web visual manifestations, the content is
produced for no specific release information (e.g., there
is no a complete web site for each major release of The
CentOS Distribution individually, but one web site to
cover them all). Likewise, the content produced in The
CentOS Showroom is created for no release-specific at all,
but for The CentOS Project in general.</para>
<para>In order to produce the correct corporate structure
for The CentOS Project, we need to concider all the
corporate manifestations The CentOS Project is made of,
not just one of them. If one different visual style is
used for each major release of The CentOS Distribution,
which one of those different visual styles would be used
to cover the remaining visual manifestations The CentOS
Project is made of (e.g., The CentOS Web and The CentOS
Showroom)?</para>
<para>Probably you are thinking, that's right, but The
CentOS Brand connects them all already, why would we need
to join them up into the same visual style too, isn't it
more work to do, and harder to maintain?</para>
<para>Harder to maintain, more work to do, probably.
Specially when you consider that The CentOS Project has
proven stability and consistency through time and, that,
certainly, didn't come through swinging magical wands or
something but hardly working out to automate tasks and
providing maintainance through time. Said that, we
consider that The CentOS Project corporate structure must
be consequent with such stability and consistency
tradition, beyond the work it might require initially. It
is true that The CentOS Brand does connect all the visual
manifestations it is present on, but that connection would
be stronger if one unique visual style backups it, too.
In fact, whatever thing you do to strength the visual
connection among The CentOS Project corporate
manifestations would be very good in favor of The CentOS
Project recognition.</para>
<para>Obviously, having just one visual style in all
corporate manifestations for eternity would be a very
boring thing and would give the impression of a visually
dead project. So, there is no problem on creating a brand
new visual style for each new major release of The CentOS
Distribution, in order to refresh The CentOS Distribution
visual style; the problem itself is in not propagating the
brand new visual style created for the new release of The
CentOS Distribution to all other visual manifestations The
CentOS Project is made of, in a way The CentOS Project
could be recognized no matter what corporate manifestation
be in front of us. Such lack of uniformity is what
introduces the visual contradition we are precisely trying
to solve by mean of themes production in the CentOS
Artwork Repository.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>